The government has decided to designate the first weekday of February as a cybersecurity day to help heighten people’s awareness about risks on the Internet, smartphones and other information communication networks.

The cybersecurity day will fall on Feb. 3 this year. On that day, the government will hold a symposium of experts and call for caution to be exercised among the public via its website and other means.

In February 2006, the government compiled its first basic plan regarding information security, which called for safety measures to be put into place when using information technologies. Since then, the government has made every February a month of information security, during which various actions have been taken.

Recently, however, there has been a large number of incidents targeting ordinary individuals, such as personal computers becoming infected with computer viruses through malware pretending to be updates of video-replay software, and hackers stealing personal information from smartphones through app software.

Given this situation, the government decided to set a day at the beginning of the month of information security to raise people’s awareness.

The government has decided to designate the first weekday of February as a cybersecurity day to help heighten people’s awareness about risks on the Internet smartphones and other information communication networks